Symmetrix Solutions Certification is provided by EMC Corporation for IT professionals who installs and configures Solutions of EMC information infrastructure. This certification course focuses on the implementation of Symmetrix solutions in open, virtual and heterogeneous environments, and on the configuration and management of information in local and remote replication. To achieve this certification, the candidate need to pass Associate Level, Specialist Level and Expert Level Exams.

Symmetrix Solutions Associate Exam (E10-001)

Symmetrix Solutions Associate courses focuses on information storage and management in virtual and cloud surroundings. This associate level exam consists of approximately 65 questions to be solved in 90 minutes. This exam mainly deals with storage functionalities and various terms used in it. The main topics to be prepared for this exam is Storage system, RAID storage systems, intelligent systems, Network attached systems, fibre channelled storage, backing up and restoring, archiving data, infrastructure for storage and its maintenance, cloud computing systems and storage securities.

Few questions referred to products that was used in the training. The course offers ILT and Video ILT which takes totally 40 hours to complete the course. The course fee is around USD $600. Attending the instructor led training and video instructor led training will make you easy to prepare for this exam. Also following 'Information Storage and Management' - 2nd Ed, by John Wiley & Sons, will help to achieve good score in this exam. EMC provides plenty of e-leaning courses and mock tests to test your ability to pass this certification.

Symmetrix Solutions Specialist Exam (E20-517)

Symmetrix Solutions Specialist Exam focuses on the management of Symmetrix solutions in open system and virtual environment with the use of Solutions like SRDF, Enabler, Unisphere, EMC Replicator, and TimeFinder. The products to be referred for this exam are Symmetrix VMAX, Solutions Enabler, TimeFinder products, FAST, FTS, SRDF products, and Federated Live Migration.

The topics to be covered for this exam are:

• Federated Live Migration and Open Replicator: This topic covers the description on features of Open Replicator and its operations, FLM overview and steps to be followed for Live Migration, RecoverPoint Symmetrix Splitter and Open Replicator methods.
• Unisphere for VMAX: It covers the Unisphere for VMAX architecture, functionalities, installation, Symmetrix configuration, and business continuity operations.
• Solutions Enabler: This topic includes the description of the installation of solution enabler, management of licenses, the idea behind the management of Gatekeeper, option file and variable usages, daemons of Solutions Enabler and its functions.
• Configuration Management of Symmetrix: It covers the Symmetrix configuration and settings, allocating storage for Symmetrix VMAX, concepts, usage and operations of Virtual provisioning, implementation and management of FAST and federated tiered storage.
• Management of Symmetrix Business Continuity: It covers the topics such as Operations of TimeFinder/VP, TimeFinder/clone and TimeFinder/Snap, Operations of SRDF/S and SRDF/A.

Good practice with the products and deep knowledge in the above topics will make you successful in achieving this certification. The course fee is nearly $5500.00.

Symmetrix Solutions Expert Exam (E20-814)

Symmetrix Solutions Expert exam focuses on the skills and knowledge required in implementing Symmetrix solutions in Open and Virtual Environments, integrating with Microsoft Exchange 2012 or MS SQL server 2008, and managing performance on Symmetrix. The exam is for 2 hours with approximately 67 questions. The products to be referred are Symmetrix VMAX, TimeFinder/Mirror, clone, snap, SRDF/A, SRDF/S, Replication Manager, MS Exchange 2010, MS SQL server 2008, Oracle, and VMware.

The important topics to be covered for this exam includes:

• Cascaded SRDF Solutions and SRDF/Star concepts
• Best practices on the Integration of Symmetrix with Microsoft Exchange
• Best practices on the Integration of Symmetrix with SQL Server
• Best practices on the Integration of Symmetrix with Oracle
• Integration of Symmetrix with VMware vSphere
• Symmetrix security
• Symmetrix Performance

EMC offers e-learning, ILT or VILT training courses to prepare this exam. It offers free practice test to test the candidate's knowledge with the topics. Regular practice with the Symmetrix products and knowledge in the above topics are necessary to clear this certification exam successfully.

Todd Hansz, Developer, Startup Labs